Factsheets

(Released in a Press Conference at Women’s Press Corps, New Delhi, on 15 March 2013)

In the three weeks from mid-January till the first week of February, several villages in the Bijapur District of Chhattisgarh experienced the terror of the armed forces of the Indian state. The CRPF, Chhattisgarh state police, erstwhile SPO’s of the Salwa Judum along with various coercive arms of the state orchestrated a systematic targeting of villages, burnt down hundreds of homes, ostensibly in random, further, burnt down the schools built by the people, picked up villagers, young and old, and physically tortured them while their homes burned to the ground.

RDF is a federation of revolutionary and democratic people's organizations working at grassroots level in different parts of the Indian subcontinent. Each of its constituent organizations works among the various sections of the people on their issues to democratise the society as per the understanding of New Democratic Revolution (NDR). RDF holds that NDR is the stage of democratizing the society by smashing the feudal and imperialist shackles which are obstacles in building a democratic social fabric in India. This also involves raising the consciousness of the people who are being kept in backwardness by the semi-feudal semi-colonial and reactionary social set-up that has emerged in the last two hundred years. This backwardness is due to the historic confluence of brahminical feudalism and colonialism, which built the foundations for the continuation of imperialist plunder.

RDF was formed in May 2005 through the merger of All India Peoples' Resistance Forum (AIPRF) and Struggling Forum for Peoples' Resistance (SFPR).

The Report of the United Nations "on accountability in Sri Lanka" is finally out, having nothing to add but for a further brandishing of the liberation struggle for separate Tamil Eelam as 'violent ethnic conflict'. It is a follow-up on the joint statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and the Government of Sri Lanka made on 23rd May 2009. They spoke of the importance of an 'accountability process for addressing violations of international humanitarian and human rights law violation'. The UN secretary-general made his visit to Sri Lanka just after the official announcement of the end of the bloody "Final war" on 19th May 2009.

A 17 member team of civil liberties and democratic rights organisations from Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Manipur, UP, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Jharkhand visited 3 districts Latehar, Garhwa and Palamau from March 25th to 29th 2012 to investigate some recent cases of violations as well as do a follow up of some of the cases from the past. Jharkhand has been in news for both peoples' struggle against water, forest and land grab, and operation green hunt. There has been a proliferation of security forces, police pickets, CRPF base camps, specifically in places where people's struggles are growing. This is only indicative of the forms in which state is trying to suppress mass struggles against anti-people development policies. The cases that were investigated highlight the lopsided development policy, in the wake of which a number of issues get highlighted.

Resist the Indian State’s War on People and assault on Democratic Rights!

The JNU Forum Against War on People

The They -a new virulent form of fascism, marked by alliances between the ruling government, the hindutva forces, domestic and international capital, the armed forces of the state and the judiciary- have come for Dr. Binayak Sen this time. Two days back on 24thDec 2010, the Raipur sessions court handed down the verdict of life imprisonment, finding Dr. Sen guilty under Sections 124 A (sedition) and 120 B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and various sections of the Chhattisgarh Public Security Act and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).

The following document is a compilation of information gathered through news reports in the mainstream media, government reports, and reports of independent fact-finding teams. It aims to offer as objective and non-partisan a view of the situation in the affected states, as is possible.

Tehelka, May 21, 2011GN Saibaba says the real alternative will come from the maoists, not the Trinamool

THE RECENT debacle of Communist Party of India (Marxist) has led to widespread speculation in the media and elsewhere that this indeed is the end of the CPI(M) in West Bengal. It is being predicted that the way they have been literally routed in the assembly poll will lead to their gradual demise. The defeat of the CPI(M) in West Bengal after its uninterrupted rule of 34 years is literally seen as the fall of the fortress. However, such a reading of the situation is misplaced.

Asom was the first territory in the region to be occupied by British colonialists after the Treaty of Yandaboo between the British East India Company and the Burmese monarch in 1826. The territory under the former Ahom kingdom, the Jaintia kingdom, the Kachari kingdom, etc. were all handed over by one occupying force to another, where none of the people of the region was a party. Asom was used as the base to gradually extend colonial occupation to the adjoining hill and plains regions, including the Matak kingdom, the Naga territory, the Manipur kingdom, the Mizo territory, as well as that of various independent tribal communities.